The Carhullan Army

I gave armed support to attacks on three other targets, including the refinery and the railway station. I do not know how many men I have killed.
    We regretted the civilian casualties and civilian deaths that occurred in the first few weeks of the conflict, when residents of the quarters attacked the remaining Authority cruisers and were shot. We were unable to provide adequate support. Their bravery will not be forgotten, and others will follow them. This is just the beginning.
    We took the town and held it for fifty-three days before the air corps and a regiment of ground forces were called back from overseas and deployed. We executed those monitors that were captured, and three doctors from the hospital, and we destroyed all official records for the Northern territories. There are no remaining carbon prints, or medical files, and the census had been wiped. You will not find out who I am. I have no status. No one does.
    My name is Sister. I am second in council to the Carhullan Army. I do not recognise the jurisdiction of this government.

Acknowledgements

    I’d like to thank Cantrell Jones for help with military research, and Philip Robinson for his environmental predictions. Thanks to Jane Kotapish, Valecia McDowell and Joanna Härmä for their conversations over the years.

    Thanks also to Jacob Polley for reading several drafts of this novel, and for coming up the fell in bad weather. Thanks to Clare Conville for all her support, and to Lee Brackstone and Trevor Horwood for their editorial advice.

    The Carhullan Army is a work of fiction. Character, events and place names are either products of the author’s imagination, or, if real, not portrayed with geographical and historical accuracy.

About the Author

    Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. She received a BA from Aberystwyth University, Wales, and a MLitt in Creative Writing from St Andrews, Scotland. She is the author of Haweswater , which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize. In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo , was short-listed for the Man Booker prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was long-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her third novel, The Carhullan Army , was published in 2007, and won the 2006/07 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree Jr. Award, a Lakeland Book of the Year prize, and was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction. Her fourth novel, How to Paint a Dead Man , was longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize.

Copyright

    This ebook edition published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

    All rights reserved
© Sarah Hall, 2007

    The right of Sarah Hall to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

    This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

    ISBN 978–0–571–26762–0